


Studying Romances (THIS WORK HAS MOVED)

by jordansmartins (heartlikeice)



Series: Studying Romances [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, College, F/M, Stanford University, University
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:36:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartlikeice/pseuds/jordansmartins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jordan Parrish is a Resident Assistant (RA) and a Criminology Major Junior. Lydia Martin is a Freshman taking Sophomore classes in her Mathematics program. She also happens to live on his floor. Dating residents is against the rules, but rules are meant to be broken, right?<br/>NOTE: THIS FIC IS BEING MOVED TO USER EMMY_ROSE PLEASE CHECK THERE</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Move In Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part of an unknown number of parts. The residential life program featured is similar to the program at San Francisco State University.

Move In Day is a great day for most people - living on their own for the first time, in a new city without their parents, and they’re chomping at the bit to taste their newfound freedom. Jordan Parrish isn’t “most people”. He’s part of the small percentage of “other people” who hate Move In Day, because he has to work it. 

As a Resident Assistant at Stanford University, Jordan is responsible for making sure people get their room keys, find the dining hall, and get moved in. And once they’re moved in? Just call him Jordan the 5th Floor Babysitter, master of tracking down the smell of weed, writing reports at three in the morning, and organizer of fire alarm drills. 

And today, curbside patrol, helping the arriving families load their belongings into gigantic yellow carts.

The morning had been busy. Parents who wanted to beat the traffic had arrived the night before, hoping to move in their student and make it to lunch at a decent hour. Jordan had spent most of his morning ferrying carts between the check out table, cars, and the elevator, and had hardly any time to joke with his friend Clarke - whose first name he didn’t know, but any girl cool enough to kick his ass at fake beer pong would probably punch him if he used her first name anyway. 

Lunchtime arrived, and most of the cars had come and gone, when an SUV pulled up. A crowd of RAs had gathered, and there was a low wolf-whistle from one of his male colleagues as a strawberry blonde with supermodel legs and a killer leather jacket got out of the front passenger seat. Looking around, Jordan elbowed his way out of the crowd and rushed to help her with her bags before any of the other guys could. 

A good-natured “You’re a dick, Parrish!” followed him across the quad, and Jordan suppressed a smile. A smile that quickly faded when he saw two boys crawl out from the back of the SUV - one the personification of sunshine, all smiles and tan skin, and the other lanky and pale and all elbows and angles. He let himself hope she wasn’t dating either of them for a split second before he remembered - residents are off limits. Date your co-workers, date a student who lives off campus, date someone in the other end of California, just don’t date a resident. 

Jordan pushed the thought away as he approached the car and reached for a backpack that was sitting on the sidewalk the same time as the girl.

“I know college dorms are supposed to be a dump, but you didn’t need your own bricks to fix any holes in any walls,” he joked. “We have plenty of posters in the bookstore you can cover them up with.”

His comedy career was short-lived, unfortunately.

“Thanks,” she said curtly. “You must not have seen a bag full of textbooks before - doesn’t surprise me, with muscles like that. When was the last time you saw the inside of a classroom?” The bite of her words were softened by the sugar in her tone, and Jordan was stunned into silence. 

Lydia, be nice, he heard a woman say from behind a storage tub full of what looked like desk knickknacks and coffee mugs. So the girl was Lydia. It was a nice name.

Wordlessly, he pointed to the check in table and opened his mouth once or twice before the power of speech found him again. “The, uh, check in table is right over there. You can pick up your keys and get your roommate assignment there. I’ll- I’ll go get a cart, if you need one?”

Rolling her eyes, Lydia shoved a cardboard box of what could only be more books into his arms. 

“The boys can get the rest, if you and your mind-numbing muscles can manage that much,” she said with a smirk. “Scott, Stiles, you can get the rest and follow, right?”

She was clearly a girl who could give directions and assume they would be followed, and Lydia charged ahead towards the table. Jordan followed, praying the entire way to every universal power that she wasn’t in his building, let alone on his floor. 

It was a prayer that would go unanswered, because when they found her on the roster, someone had gone over her name with an orange highlighter - orange was his color. 

Lydia Martin was his resident, and she lived right across the hall from him.


	2. Part Two

Lydia rolled her eyes as her mother made yet another - five, at her last count - comment about the overly helpful and overly cute staff. Between the snarky comments from Stiles, the hopeful looks from Scott, and her mother, Lydia was ready to send them off with hugs and get down to unpacking her room. More than anything, she wanted to avoid her new RA and anything to do with him. And she wanted to call Allison.

Until she had met Allison, Lydia had never imagined going to college with anyone, never considered who she would want to live with and do pub quizzes with, rush a sorority, or anything that you did in college. Then she had met Allison and she thought she had found that person, until Allison had nearly died in that freak accident and decided to stay close to home for college. Lydia didn’t blame her, but she missed her, and knew Allison had wanted the whole college experience so Lydia was determined to tell her all about it and her best friend could live vicariously through her.

Two hours later, her boxes and bags and suitcases had been moved into her small bedroom, they had gone to lunch, everyone had said their goodbyes, and Lydia was laying on her bed with her feet propped up against the wall, dial tone echoing in the empty room.

_Tell me all about it!_ , Allison squealed into the phone without greeting. It made Lydia smile, knowing that her best friend had been waiting for her call and was excited to hear about her life, interested to know what she liked and wanted and planned to do. It was what your best friend was supposed to do, not whatever the other girls in high school had done.

“The boys wouldn’t stop talking the entire way there,” Lydia chuckled. “I think Stiles regrets UCSF right about now, after seeing the campus. It’s really beautiful here, even if it is kind of cold, and my roommate hasn’t shown up yet, and my mom practically had hearts-eyes over my Resident Assis-”

She was cut off by Allison laughing and begging for details, and while Lydia didn’t really feel like talking about him, she would do it anyway. For Allison. 

“He looks like some protein-shake toting dudebro- no, not like super muscle-y but like he works out and he knows it and he knows you know it, you know? And he tried to be a smart ass about my books, and I don’t even know what I said to him - something about his body fat ratio matching his IQ? Or maybe I imagined that. I don’t even know, but it shut him up after that but not in a bad way and he lives across the hall from me because this is a co-ed floor and if he wakes me up with some rap music crap that he probably works out to I’ll probably scream.” Wow, she was out of breath. Lydia really wasn’t doing a good job of convincing Allison (or herself) that she didn’t care one way or the other what this guy thought about her, because he annoyed her enough that she did care. 

“But anyway, I start classes next Monday and I’ve got my second-year English class, some psychology elective that I haven’t checked out yet, and then Calculus and that’s it, and I’m going to go find my classes tomorrow and Greek Week starts the week after that, but I don’t even want to rush without you, I don’t care how good it looks on a resume!” she said with a sigh. 

A national sorority would look great, especially the ones that had connections in mathematics fields, but she didn’t want any girl friends other than Allison - not even her mysterious roommate, Christine. They had talked in the phone, made sure their room decorations didn’t clash, but that was about it. She was a nice enough sounding girl, but a Hospitality Major, nothing even related to Lydia’s field. 

_No, you’re rushing,_ Allison said in a tone that brooked no argument. _You’re going to rush, make friends with girls on the floor, have movie nights, make disgusting dining hall food taste good with Pinterest hacks, meet some nice boy who will worship your every move, and join an honor society. And Scott and I will come visit you every weekend we have free, okay?_

“I don’t want someone to worship me, I want someone to challenge me,” she murmured. She didn’t want another Jackson or an anti-Jackson. She wanted someone different.

After hanging up with Allison, Lydia started unpacking her bags, making her bed up with her new Anthropologie quilt, and hung pictures on the wall of places she wanted to travel, and set a framed picture of her and Allison, and an old black and white picture of her, her mother, and her grandmother on the desk. Christmas lights were wrapped around the bulletin board frame, and after spraying some body spray around to get rid of the “musty dorm” smell, things felt more like home.

As Lydia waited for her roommate to arrive, she set up her laptop with the wifi and surfed the web, scrolling through facebook until her vision blurred. Doors opened and closed up and down the hall, people laughed and shouted and sang, and after a few hours things were quiet. 

It was well after ten when a door opened across the hall - it had a squeaky hinge that set her teeth on edge - and then slammed shut. It seemed her neighbor was home. There was no obnoxious rap music, no noise at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't have chapter titles... Suggestions for scenes and titles are welcome at marrishmallow.tumblr.com!


	3. Part Three

Jordan was dead on his feet and still wide awake. It sucked, but it wasn’t the worst thing - he had to get used to the late nights that he would be on call and as he lay on the floor, his body began to relax, hours of tension melting away. He hadn’t even made it to his bed. Looking up and to the right, Jordan groaned as his muscles protested. On a good day a college mattress wasn’t comfortable, but it looked like heaven tonight.

His head rolled back to a resting position and he stared at the ceiling. Just outside his door, the residence hall was coming to life with the sound of students. The boys who lived next door were playing Call of Duty - roommate bonding, no doubt - and two girls down the hallway sounded like they were getting ready for a karaoke party. How did they find where the parties were already? And WHY were there already parties? School hadn’t even started yet!

The train of thought left the station before Jordan could finish it or follow it off the tracks, and Jordan looked at his door while making a few movements as possible. He couldn’t hear anything coming from Lydia’s room across the hall. Was she in there? Had she already found a party? Or maybe she was out her boyfriend, one of the boys who had helped her move. Jordan found he didn’t particularly like that last idea, but it wasn’t any of his business, and if he wanted to keep his job it would never be his business. 

Eventually, Jordan pushed himself up off the ground and dragged his tired body onto his bed. Laying on his stomach, he plugged in his phone and started typing out a text message.

text to: clarke  
> are you still alive?  
> i’d say we should go out for beers but if residents catch us we’re fucked

He hit send and let his head drop onto the pillow with a “floof” sound. Clarke wasn’t exactly a fast texter, so he probably had a few minutes of peace. 

The response came unusually fast - she must have had her phone on her.

text to: jordan  
> i think so  
> unless this is heaven because netflix is playing  
> i sort of need this job, so no thanks. i’ve got wine coolers in the mini fridge though, if you’re manly enough to drink them

Manly enough? Really? He would have rolled his eyes if they didn’t hurt.

text to: clarke  
> first wine coolers, then you’ll have me helping you with spa night programs  
> get ye gone woman, and leave me to my manly pursuits!

Whatever those manly pursuits were, Jordan couldn’t name any at the moment. He’d have to come up with a few by the time he saw Clarke the next morning for breakfast though-

Breakfast. Where he’d probably see Lydia.

Was she a breakfast person? Or maybe she was just a coffee person and had a coffee machine in her room. Or maybe she wasn’t a morning person and didn’t eat until ten. Or maybe she went to the dining center right when it opened at seven. Wait, why was he worrying about this? Jordan couldn’t figure out if he wanted to see her, or wanted to avoid her that morning. 

text to: clarke  
> breakfast at the usual time. running then cereal and THEN program planning  
> get your brain ready

There. That meant that Jordan had a quick escape if breakfast got awkward. Jordan really hoped it wouldn’t get awkward, but with his luck, it would.


	4. THIS FIC HAS MOVED

Hi guys - this fic is being moved to account user emmy_rose. Please check there as it will be moving this weekend (today is 8-15-15)


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